As publishedOct. 17-Dec. 24, 2026
Pennsylvania's official state bird.Statewide season.
PGC does not run a spring drumming-count route survey for ruffed grouse; its core monitoring instruments are a Grouse Summer Sighting Survey (forester-logged incidental sightings via the Survey123 app, ongoing since 1981) and hunter-harvested-bird serosurveillance for West Nile virus antibodies (linked directly to the state's ongoing grouse decline in PGC's own research). Both are confirmed active, ongoing programs with no fixed annual publish window and no discrete 2026 report found this pass.